Fruits of my seed starting labors, some farther along than others. The big squash was a volunteer from the compost, not sure yet if it’s a butternut or a pumpkin. Also featuring some peas in the background that I really need to trellis

Last year’s kale is starting to flower - the seed I saved from the year before is growing well so I’m excited to collect more.

Bonus double rainbow from the storms we had earlier this week. Weather is beautiful now, I like the May-June time of year.

These were relatively cheap, off of Amazon. Probably not spectrally perfect, but they’ve been good enough for my seed starting.

I have a set of “dumb” grow lights plugged into some smart plugs which connect to Home Assistant. It’s simple, it works, and I like getting the power consumption data as well. Having multiple “zones” would just require another smart plug.

The ornamental cherry is in full bloom, which is lovely! Yesterday afternoon we slapped together a trellis for some of the peas with some reclaimed building materials. Last weekend I planted out my two blueberry bushes, which are just starting to break dormancy.

This weekend’s task will be to thin the masses of volunteer tomato seedlings that have popped up, and maybe transplant some of the more intentionally grown ones!

I have two yards of topsoil/compost blend arriving this week, at which point I can plant eldest sister corn in the new beds!

I don’t have any of those species, but I do have a lot of invasive alder buckthorn (frangula alnus) which I’m cutting out and could use for mulch. Tempted to keep one or two around to coppice for trellis material or firewood/kindling since it seems to grow back pretty well.

Buckwheat and field peas are my current fall cover crop plans for later this year.

So many peas! I’m excited, I love snap peas. My hope is to succession plant them on the same trellis as my tomatoes and cucumber, we’ll see if they have enough of a head start for that to work out. Last year’s kale is also killin’ it out there, making the most of the time before the cabbage moths show up

My seed starting is not going quite as well as I’d like, only two cucumber coming up so far of the 10 or so I wanted. No peppers yet either, though that was old seed. Tomatoes are doing decently well, and I’ve got plenty of backups in the multitude of seedlings that have spring up outside where fruit fell off the vine last year!

I’m worried about the apples I planted around this time last year. They haven’t showed signs of leafing out yet, though I did have to cut a couple of suckers off the base of one. I might not have babied them enough last summer, and they did get some involuntary pruning by the deer.

On the bright side, I just received my blueberry bushes! Planning to plant them out this weekend, just gotta figure out where… Any tips on high-bush blueberry care would be much appreciated!

Thanks for the detailed response!

Did your Honeycrisp survive?

Neither of my apples have leafed out yet, which has me a little worried - though the Baldwin put out a sucker below the graft which I cut off.

Do you have purslane (Portulaca oleracea) there?

I actually do have a couple of (non-native) purslane species in the yard - I hadn’t thought about using them as a living mulch, but I like the idea. One of them has gorgeous flowers.

Do you compost your poop?

Not something I feel comfortable I could do safely, unfortunately. Especially since my house is in a saddle curve where a lot of storm water flows through into some wetlands conservation land. I’d be worried about runoff. Also not sure how my town would feel about it!

So you cover the surface of your garden beds with compost?

That’s the plan! I’d also like to do some cover crops and chop-and-drop this fall for mulch.

I’ve only grown Marketmore, which is basically what you get in supermarkets but with the advantage that you can eat it right off the plant rather than trucking it from Mexico or California. I grew it in full sun with a trellis, and the four plants I had last year were very productive. Make sure it gets consistent water or the fruits can develop badly or split.

With some cucumber varieties you have to prevent pollination by picking off the male flowers, that’s not the case for Marketmore.

Also just getting started! The only edible fruiting plant when I moved here in 2023 was a black raspberry bush. A year ago I added two apple trees (though the honey crisp may not have survived the winter, we’ll see). I had a very successful annual garden last year, hoping to continue that this coming season and try out the three sisters companion planting method.

For perennials, this year I’ll be adding two blueberry bushes, inoculating some logs with shiitake and oyster mushroom spawn, and encouraging some volunteer black raspberries that have popped up elsewhere.

Pruning hasn’t been an issue yet, but I will need to more actively manage the raspberries this year.

In the future I’m hoping to add lots more edible native shrubs, and maybe more trees if I can find good spots for them.

I’m in the northeast woodlands bioregion of the US, zone 5. I have two compost bins going with leaves, grass clippings, shredded paper/cardboard and kitchen scraps. Last year one bin produced enough to cover about one and a half of my 4x8 ft garden beds. I’m planning to order a cubic yard or two from a local business again this year to top up the annual garden. I don’t really expect to get fully self sufficient on compost anytime soon, but I’ll keep producing as much as I’m able.

These lil dudes are also starting to pop up

It’s glazed ceramic - I do pottery as well, this was someone I know from the studio I go to. Trading for stuff is so much more satisfying than paying/being paid for it.

That’s a great idea for reusing vinyl blinds, wish I’d thought of it when I lived somewhere with blinds that kept breaking!

Got some stuff starting to come up (:

Need to do the majority of my summer crop seed starting this weekend, I think

I’m happy to get to use the plant markers I traded someone I know for - I designed/3D printed a “cookie cutter” so she could make these faster, and in return she made me a set

Last weekend I planted peas, kale, arugula, and radish outside - just the tiniest hint of some arugula coming up so far, but an indoor tray of radishes are germinating very nicely.

I’ve been eyeing the native trees and shrubs in an email I got from Fedco - I think in the future I’m going to have to plant a bunch of viburnums! Need something to replace the invasive buckthorn that pops up all over here.

@LallyLuckFarm I also just planted and scattered some of those milkweed seeds - thanks again for that!

I just completed my first substantial sewing project, using a pattern from this site! My hems aren’t the most even and the neckline was really tricky but I’m pretty happy with it. This is the Sven sweatshirt design, and I used a somewhat heavy knit cotton/polyester fabric. It fits great (as you’d hope!) and will probably become my new winter pajama shirt.

The site is great to use - there are good pictures for how to take each of the measurements you need, and I liked the ability to manually optimize the part layout to minimize the amount of paper it used. I saw a tip on YouTube to piece the pattern together by taping it to a large window or glass door so you can see the overlap between the sheets, and that worked great for me.

My next goal is to do a Simon shirt in flannel - decent step up in complexity so I might do a few other simpler projects first.

Good to know - thanks!

FB marketplace may be where I end up - I’ve seen big fluid totes on there when I’ve looked in the past.

Good to know! A contractor we had doing some work on the house last year left behind a roll of thick poly sheeting so I was thinking about using that to make some floating row covers anyway.

I’ll be sure to post lots of pictures this year! I also started a personal website recently for fun so I’ll probably be putting stuff there.

I’m curious where you got your rain water containers - I’d like to get something around that size this year.

I’m planning to devote about half of my fenced garden space to trying a three sisters patch, and this year I’m going to be more strategic about where I put my potatoes so they don’t shade out everything around them early in the season. I haven’t grown beans or corn before but my squash did great last year so I’m looking forward to more of that!

I didn’t have great luck with brassicas last year so I’m hoping to do better by starting earlier and figuring out how to fight the cabbage moths.

I also have tentative plans to build out a patio/fire pit area on the site of a pool and deck I tore down last year. I want it surrounded by raised beds with various perennials like blueberry bushes, and maybe someday a grape trellis. I have plenty of wood from that deck so I may also build random stuff like a bench to go inside my squash tunnel (:

This was a good reminder that I should start putting together a planting schedule and a seed order soon!

I use these at night if my feet get too cold, but this was a great reminder I can use them at other times too! Turned down my heat but am very cozy with a blanket and a hot water bottle.

Also, making covers for them was a great beginner crochet project.